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No
idea how often I would be updating (if at all) during the next three weeks
(till Sep 7th) -- it will depend on internet access in India (not a problem
actually; just my figuring out ways to use it is the problem :-)) ..

Aug 19 Notes

3rd time in the final was
still not successful for MB-Mirnyi who put up a great fight before going
dowb to quite possibly the best team out there - and the only one active
from even before the Indian Express .. They went down to Knowles-Nestor,
67(2) 76(5) 46 last evening at the $800K Indi final .. Oh well ..

Dr Vece Paes confirmed yesterday,
according to The Hindu, that LP will be playing Asiad ..
Good news .. No further details.

Delhi futures starts monday
with Rohan top seed and Mustafa second .. Harsh, Sunil, Ajay and the whole
gumbal is there .. Should be fun! -- Not sure if I will have a scores page.
May be later on in the week if at all .. Check out http://www.stevegtennis.com,
the mother of all sites for scores (also The
Hindu newspaper, normally the most reliable in terms of complete
scores.

Aug 18 Note-2

MB-Mirnyi play the doubles
final today at the $800K Indianapolis ATP at about 3 or 3.30 pm, after
the singles final .. They go against the top seeds Knowles-Nestor .. MB-Mirnyi
do have a win over them in the semis at Queens, and this should be a very
good match.

As for this coming week,
Leander
Paes is seeded 3rd with Thomas Cibulec (CZE), as the the FO semifinalists
pair team up again for the first time after the FO at the $480K Hamlet
Cup in Long Island, NY .. Good to see Lee back out there .. They face Gambill
and Graydon Oliver in the first round .. Mahesh Bhupathi is in the
doubles draw with Mike Bryan too, seeded first .. I guess Bob Bryan will
be at the USO qualies next week and Mirnyi will be taking his usual week
off to prepare for grand slam singles .. MB-Bryan face Younes El-Aynaoui
(MAR) and Adrian Voinea (ROM).

I guess LP and MB had another
chance to team up to at least get a bit of rust off if they are planning
to play together at Asiad or Davis Cup (I am doubtful of the former, but
the latter they have said before they would do) .. They have lost that
chance too .. But I have given up on all that long back .. I am in the
"let us just cheer/follow these two anyway - they are like all other professional
tennis players making a living from it after all", mode .. We have come
to this slowly over time, and so there isn't much of an emotional response
anymore on this from me - and I suspect from a lot of other fans too ..
Quite a few of us are rather numb to it all and have given up on getting
any excitement of the "express" kind any more (though I still get emails
from some really hurt diehards who have not adjusted to this - and blame
one side or the other for it) .. Frankly, I wanted LP to anyway play
the Hamlet ATP with somebody he could be teaming up with at USO (I hope
he would play with Cibulec or Michael Hill there), as MB is set with Mirnyi
for the rest of the year .. So this is fine ..

MB-Mirnyi is now ranked #9
in the team race after picking up 350 points last week to bring their total
to 1495 points together, just 5 points behind the #8 team .. They are well
on the way to a spot in the year-end WDC this year, if ATP is going to
hold that anywhere .. LP is ranked #25 with MB and #26 with Cibulec.
He will need some 1500 odd points from now on to make it to any WDC this
year (not impossible, but quite tough) .. Now that Bangalore is not in
the running for WDC this year, I am not sure who will conduct it, and ATP
is least bit borthered .. I guess all the doubles players should just make
as much money as they can before ATP kills doubles once and for all.

At the Hamlet Cup qualies
first round Prakash Amritraj went down 26 26 to Magnus Norman (SWE,124),
who was back-toback singles champion there in 99 and 00 .. Norman also
beat the 7th seed Davydenko 63 63 yesterday to make the main draw (I couldn't
believe that they would make the guy play qualies rather than give him
a wildcard! - it was not that long ago that he was winning titles there
for crying out loud .. Count me in as one of Norman's fans for going there
and paying the qualies - this is a guy who has a had two career/life threatening
injuries, the hip injury and 5 hour surgery recently and some serious heart-valve
problem earlier too; and he is still out there doing it) ..

Aug 18 Note-1

It was past 11 pm when they
got done with another three-set comeback, but Hesh-Max have reached another
final, their second consecutive one - [SF] #3 M.Bhupathi/ M.Mirnyi d.
B.MacPhie/ N.Zimonjic, 36 75 63 .. In the final today, they face
the top seeds Knowles-Nestor ..

No news yet on how Prakash
did in the first round of the qualies at the $455K Hamlet Cup ATP at Commack,
Long Island, New York.

Aug 17 Note-3

MB-Mirnyi doubles SF is at
about 9 pm tonight .. Prakash Amritraj (USA) is at the qualies for the
Hamlet Cup in Long Island .. he plays Magnus Norman (SWE,124) today and
will run into the 7th seed Nikolay Davydenko (RUS,90), who has a Q1 bye,
if he can upset make a miraculous upset of Norman somehow .. As the Atlanta
ATP, originally set for this week, got cancelled there is only one tournament
this week . So the Hamlet Cup has an unusually tough entry list.

Only four countries placed
both their teams in the final eight - USA, RUS, ARG and IND .. With the
girls and boys beating Russia and Argentina respectively for the 7th spot,
now there are only TWO countries in the world final seven of boys and
girls .. USA and India! .. I know it is a silly/obscure stat, but what
the heck - it sounds good! :-) .. Anyway, this is the highest finish on
both sides of the draw for India in these competitions which started in
1991.

So the boys finished with
wins over #8, #10, #13 (with wins over #9 AUS (twice) and #16 CHN in the
regionals) and losses to #1 and #7 .. The girls team had wins over #8,
#9, #15 and losses to #1 and #5 (with wins over #14 and #16 and loss to
#6 CHN in the regionals) .. Going 3-2 in the world finals and going ahead
of their seeding by both teams shows that this was a successful trip ..
More than the finish out there, what was impressive was that the players
were ready throughout the week and were only going down to the few very
strong players there .. Both teams did all this while being pretty much
assured of losing one tie right off the bat, being pooled on both sides
with the top seeds (and eventual winners who were clearly the odds-on-favorite
much before it all started) .. Coaches Hemant Bendre (boys) and Kawaljeet
Singh (girls) deserve all the praise for a job well done .. Credit should
also go to AITA for the good planning this time .. I know the stories of
the past when our junior players had to return from a European tour and
had to catch a flight right back to Europe and get there the night before
for the junior finals - due to things falling through cracks in Delhi on
travel planning .. Not this time, as Sumit stayed back in Europe and with
the teams reaching early enough to prepare and be readu on the first day
itself, etc and was properly rested for some key doubles matches .. Probably
the most important thing AITA did was that they did not mess around with
the coaches and sent the same coaches as in the Asian regionals to Europe
as well .. The coaches got plenty of time to know the teams and get the
kids ready.

The u18 claycourt
nationals got done at Chennai today with Isha and Somdev retaining
their titles .. I was surprised at the tough match that young Kartiki gave
to isha .. She had isha on the ropes and made her comeback with a tiebreakers
for 46 76 46 win ..

Aug 17 Note-1

The RCA championship website
first said that MB-Mirnyi lost last evening .. I decided to wait a little
to confirm, and sure enough they updated the site later .. No, MB-MM are
alive and have reached the SF, as they seem to very consistently do these
days - though it took some hard fight to day for them to advance .. [QF]
#3 M.Bhupathi/ M.Mirnyi d. J.Morrison (USA)/ G.Weiner (USA), 46 76(3) 64
.. They play #7 Brian MacPhie (USA)/ Nenad Zimonjic (YUG) today in the
semis, at about 9 pm .. BM-NZ upset the 2nd seeds Bjorkman-Woodbridge yesterday.

Our u14 team had a rest day
yesterday at Prostejov, as only the lower-8 placement ties were on the
Friday schedule .. The upper 8 placement ties are today.

Aug 16 Note-2

Isha and Kartiki reached
the 18-and-under claycourt nationals
finals today at Chennai .. 17 yr old Isha is the defending champion and
it was clear that it would take some sort of a miracle from someone to
get past her - and I thought the only girl in the draw who even had an
outside chance to give Isha any trouble was 15 yr old Kartiki .. And they
meet now .. On the boys's side, Somdev was really the one to beat (he too
is the defending champ - perhaps I should have mentioned him as the one
very talented boy there, when I said the boys' side lacked a bit of luster
this time with the 17-18 yr olds not being among the best group we have
had in recent years -- actually Somdev has really not had enough of a chance
to show his talent this year in the junior ITF events) .. Aditya Madkekar
of Maharashra who has played very well to reach the final this time against
Somdev is somewhat of a surprise.

There wasn't much point in
the world junior #32 Isha playing this event, other than in staying match-fit,
but it helps other players to play against her .. There was some good news
this week, as ITF grandslam development committee agreed to provide some
small funds ($750) for Isha to travel abroad to 4-5 events including the
US Open juniors for which she is a direct entry (as I said earlier, she
had missed both the FO and Wimbledon where she would have been a direct
entry) .. Also getting similar support for foreign travel is Karan Rastogi,
who does not qualify for USO juniors but will be trying to bring his ranking
up to make it to the grand slam type junior events over the next two years.

Aug 16 Note-1

3rd seeds MB-Mirnyi play
the Indi QF today against the American pair, Jeff Morrison and Glenn Weiner
today, at about 4 pm .. Those two upse the 8th seeds in the R2 ..

At the USA F24, the top seed
Ignacio Hirigoyen (ARG,393) beat Manoj Mahadevan, 62 62 in the second round
..

Here are the original entries
for the India F3 $10K futures starting next Monday (with entry-time
rankings) -- 1 Rohan Bopanna (#488), 2 Mustafa Ghouse (535), 3 Nitin
Kirtane (633), and 4 Vijay Kannan (703) are the top four entries .. Ajay
Ramaswamy, Eliran Dooyev (ISR), Jon Hedman (SWE), Vinod Sridhar, Attapol
Rattiwattanapong (THA), Rishi Sridhar, Ciarran Moore, Sonchat Ratiwatana,
Kamala Kannan, Shivang Mishra, Dekel Valtzer (ISR), Stephen Nugent (IRL),
Roy Sichel (ISR), Rohan Gajjar, Vishal Punna, Assaf Drori are the 20 direct
entrants .. Harsh Mankad may be a wildcard entry as his ranking is too
low .. Surprised not to see Sunil Kumar and Manoj Mahadevan in there, but
good to see Rohan playing it (the points can't hurt!) .. Sunil Kumar is
in the entry list for the second futures F4 (at Gulbarga), however .. Manoj
may be staying in the US and playing the futures here, now that he has
spent money to travel to North America .. Quite week in foreign participation
again, but this time around that does not matter because Rohan, Harsh,
Ajay (and possibly Sunil) add some pretty good quality competition from
the Indian side, and things aren't going to be easy for anybody.

I have added all the Thursday
scores from Chennai at the u18 National
Junior Claycourts page .. Isha, Kartiki, Somdev, etc are in the semis
.. Chatwinder Singh, the #2 boys seed bowed out to Aditya Madkekar (MAH)
in a bit of a surprise ..

Aug 15 Note-2

The kids couldn't do a whole
lot against the big big veterans out there .. MB-Mirnyi won the R2 match
62 63 just now at Indi .. Still a great job by Prakash and Stephen with
a first round win and 25 ATP entry points, showing again that they are
pretty much for real.

Aug 15 Note-1

Happy
Independence Day! ..

The Amritrajs are playing
Mahesh-Mirnyi right now in a prime time night match on center court at
the $800K Indi ATP ..

The Indian girls and boys
both lost their ties for 5-8 placement today at the Prostejov u14 world
finals (the upper-8 ties would be tough, as we expected), and will both
play for the 7th-8th spots next .. Unseeded Indian Girls lost 1-3 to the
6th seeds Russia (Tara Iyer l. Ekaterina Makarova 06 06 .. Sanaa Bhambri
d. Evguenia Rodina, 63 63 .. Bhambri/ Iyer l. E.Kosminskaia / Makarova,
26 46) .. The boys lost to Morocco, 0-3 (Ayoub Benamar d. Mathivanan Jeevan,
61 62 .. Reda El Amrani d. Rupesh Roy, 64 62 .. M.Benehamou/ El Amrani
d. S.Gupta/ M.Jeevan 46 64 61) .. So, not a good day, but Sanaa continues
to impress with her ability to go and beat some of these players in the
#1 vs #1 matchups! .. Tomorrow, the Indian boys play Russia to try for
the 7th spot and improve on their seeding of #8 in the tournament .. The
same with the girls (who play Argentina next), except that they have gone
past the expectations already, being unseeded .. Either way, top-8 is the
best finish in the world in a junior world final that I remember (the u16
boys team from a few years back ended up #9, which is the best I remember).

6th seed Sonal Phadke lost
in the QF to unseeded but talented/tough Lauren Cheung (AUS) 16 46 at the
$10K Nakhon Ratchasima satellite in Thailand today .. Liza Pereira and
Yoo-Mi Jung (KOR) lost 06 36 to the tough 3rd seeded Indonesian pair, Wukirasih
Sawondari and Liza Andriyani .. That ends it for Indians this week in Thailand
..

Aug 14 Note-5

Haven't seen when the Amritrajs
will play MB-Mirnyi today ..

Since little details can
bug the curious academician in me, I went looking for the ITF rulebook
on the format for the final - it says, "On completion of the round robin
groups, the four group winners shall contest the main draw semi-finals
and the final. The winner of group 1 shall be placed at the top of the
draw in position 1. The winner of group 4 shall be placed at the bottom
of the draw in position 4. The winner of group 2 shall be placed in position
2. The winner of group 3 shall be placed in position 3. The four group
runners-up shall contest consolation semi-finals and the final in the same
manner and so on." .. That seems to say that our boys and girls are going
to be in a two-round knockout tournament to decide positions 5 thru 8 ..
So, not correct to say that we are in the quarterfinal .. But it is correct
to say that we are in the world top-8! .. Looks like the girls will play
Russia next and the guys would play Morocco next, to finish in the top-6
.. [That explains the line saying "5 ties each" in ITF's fact sheet
- though it does not explain their schedule page with 6 days scheduled
and a placeholder for a "quarterfinal" .. OK, I give up :-)] .. Now, I
can just wait for a couple of days to see what happens; just that I go
crazy with this kind of trivialities sometimes ..

AITA's press release said
yesterday this -- "With this loss (to nederlands), India is now tied with
Spain for the 2nd slot from Group 1 to qualify for the Knock out stage.
In the next tie, if India beats Brazil and Spain loses to Netherlands,
Indian girls will make it to the knockout stage along with Netherlands."
.. That may not be technically correct if the above rule is followed, because
everybody does qualify for a knockout stage, though only for 1-4, 5-8,
9-12, 13-16 positioning.

Aug 14 Note-4

Well, it seems that the Indian
boys and girls are indeed in the quarterfinal stage of the world u14 finals
(ITF shows QF, SF, F in their schedule for knockout, and they do not talk
about the knockout stage in the fact sheet for the tournament, though for
some strange reason they also said there would be only 5 ties for each
team, rather than the six one would expect for complete placement from
1 through 16 - so I am a bit confused) .. I have not seen ITF's final word
on this, and have only seen the scores for today posted by the Brazilian
tennis association (neither of their two teams made it :-(), as all the
rest of the world including ITF London was asleep by the time the scoresheets
came out from CZE .. As far as I can figure out, here are the top two teams
from each group - Girls: Group [1] NED, IND [2] CZE, RUS [3] USA, CHN [4]
POL, ARG .. Boys: [1] USA, IND [2] ARG, MAR [3] RUS, CAN [4] ESP, FRA ..

It is certainly commendable
to reach the final-8 in the world in a competition that started with over
80 countries each on the boys and girls side .. Only four countries have
placed both their boys and girls teams in the final eight - USA, Russia,
Argentina and India! .. It is even more impressive that India basically
had the worst draw possible on both sides, placed with the #1 ranked teams
in the world on paper, and having to win both their other two ties to advance
.. And our kids did the job! .. Good work by Hemant Bendre (boys' coach)
and Kawaljeet Singh (girls' coach) -- do not underestimate their
ability to keep the kids confident .. Both teams were ready on the first
day itself to win their close initial ties which turned out to be the clinchers
.. But the work isn't done -- even tougher teams come up now in the QFs!

Manoj Mahadevan did a comeback
job today at the USA F24 over qualifier Jeremy Wurtzman (USA) 26 64 61
to reach the second round, but he now has a tough one in the R2 against
Ignacio Hirigoyen (ARG), the top seed .. In doubles, the #2 seeds Hirigoyen
and Kepler Orellana (VEN) beat Manoj and Nick Monroe (USA) 62 76(4) ..

I have added whatever results
I could find for today, at the Chennai junior claycourt u18
nationals page .. No surprises .. Isha, Kartiki, Somdev Varman, etc
moved on .. G.Arjun from Karnataka has been looking good.

Aug 14 Note-3

Hey, the cousins ain't no
flies in the pan! .. They won their doubles match again today - [R1]
(wc) P.Amritraj/ S.Amritraj d. (s) Stefan Koubek (AUT)/ Rainer Schuettler
(GER), 64 64 !! .. And they run into the 3rd seeds Mahesh Bhupathi
and Max Mirnyi in the second round tomorrow .. The boys are really cooking!
.. I have no details on the match yet.

Indian boys beat Belgium
2-0 and lost to top seeds USA 0-3, but finished second in the pool with
a 2-1 record, just like the Indian girls who beat Brazil 3-0 today to finish
second in their pool with 2-1 behind the top seeds Netherlands .. Scores:
Boys:
2-0 vs. BEL (Jeevan d. Michiel Antheunis, 63 63; Rupesh Roy d. Frederic
De Fays, 76(4) 63; doubles not played) .. 0-3 vs #1 USA (M.Jeevan l. Dylan
Arnould, 26 36; Rupesh Roy l. Marcus Fugate, 46 46; S.Gupta/ R.Roy l. D.Arnold/
J.Boym, 16 36) ..
Girls: 3-0 vs BRA (Tara Iyer d. Paula Madruga,
64 61; Sanaa Bhambri d. Teliana Pereira, 46 63 62; Bhambri/ Iyer d. Pereira/
L.Vieira, 76(4) 64) .. So basically the 2-1 wins over the 3rd place teams
are what pushed our boys and girls teams to the second spots in their pools,
as the toppers were both #1 seeds, not easy to beat .. The clincher doubles
win by the boys team against Columbia, and by the girls team in upsetting
7th seed Spain, both on the first day, proved to be the difference .. M.Jeevan's
great work in pinch-hitting for Sumit at the #2 spot and going 2-1 in singles,
was terrific (especially the win on the first day), not to mention the
8-6 3rd set win by Sumit and Rupesh on the first day .. I am trying to
figure out who plays whom next (actually, I am not even sure I have the
format correct; hopefully two teams advance to QF from each group, though
we can't put it past ITF to go for some messed up scheme like only one
team each going to the SFs - I am looking for confirmation, or all I said
is pointless about finishing second in the pools to be important!)

Aug 14 Note-2

A few ties did get completed
at the Prostejov world u14 finals yesterday before the big rain touched
down on the easterm end of CZE which is where Prostejov is (Prague is to
the left end, I think) .. The ITF says the ties which were played itself
were in gusty windy conditions - and that never helps Indian players ..
Only the girls' tie got done, and the boys' tie for us was postponed to
today .. Anyway, I didn't think we had much of a chance aganst the top
seeds in the field, Netherlands led by Michaela Krajicek, wind or not ..
We went down 0-3 yesterday to them -- Bibiane Schoofs d. Tara Iyer, 64
61 .. Michaela Krajicek d. Sanaa Bhambri, 61 63 .. Krajicek/ Schoofs d.
Bhambri/ Iyer, 62 64 .. This is why I was close to tears (:-)) seeing the
draw that was slapped on us, and also why Monday's big win over Spain was
important .. Spain defetaed Brazil 3-0 yesterday .. ESP were to face NED
today, and we were to play BRA .. Brazil had lost 6 matches in straight
sets to NED and ESP .. If we beat BRA and ESP loses to NED (quite probable)
we are through to the next round .. If we win and ESP upsets NED, it would
be a three-way tie between NED, ESP and us for two spots and we look to
the matches won, sets won, etc .. If we and ESP both lose today, it would
still be a three-way tie between us, ESP and BRA, but for one spot .. Awaiting
news from today - and it may take some time.

The boys were to play Belgium
first and then USA .. The extra day of rest may have been useful, because
Sumit Gupta is apparently down with some allergic reaction and is a bit
weak after the last few weeks of play in Europe with the ITF Asian team
(I was hoping that he could somehow skip out of the last week to take rest,
actually) .. That is why our #3 Jeevan played in the first tie, but he
did a super job winning his match too .. Anyway, today is the crucial day.

The news from the Thailand
satellite is really pathetic this week, as only ONE Indian has reached
the second round among some 9 who were there (7 in the main draw) .. Sheetal,
Shruti, etc all fell today and Radhika who got an Indian in the draw is
the only one to move on .. Not even doubles has been good for us, as the
only Indian in the second round is one who is playing with a foreigner,
and got to upset only Indians .. I know I am being unusually harsh here,
but really, come on girls - you gotta do better than this! :-) .. Yikes,
that is the worst show ever that I remember by Indians .. #6 Sonal Phadke
d. (q) Liza Pereira, 63 62 .. Chattida Thimjapo (THA) d. (q) Shruti Dhawan,
64 63 .. #8 Chin-Bee Khoo (MAS) d. Sheethal Goutham, 61 63 .. OK, technically
Shruti and Sheetal would have had to pull off upsets against their opponents
but the scorelines suggest that they were really not even in the matches
.. That is two weeks of bad results .. But then again Chin-Bee was a top-20
college player till recently and all that (though she has not set the pro
circuit on fire yet) .. Chattida has been trouble for Indians for a while
too .. Now, for doubles - Yoo-Mi Yung (KOR)/ Liza Periera d. Sheethal/
Shruti, 64 62 .. Chun-Yan He/ Cheng-Jie Le (CHN) d. #2 seeds Sai/ Radhika,
64 63 .. Apparently all foreign players (not Indians) are complaining about
the surface at Ratchaseema or some such out of the way place in Thailand
where this is being played - the Thai satellites rarely go too far from
Bangkok, Nonthburi and Pattay City .. Perhaps that affected our players
too.

Aug 14 Note-1

Prakash and Stephen did not
get to play last night due to the rain delays .. They are scheduled to
play an evening match today .. So MB's doubles second round against the
winners will be on Thursday .. I believe Manoj Mahadevan has not played
his first round singles yet - he should be in action at the USA F24 today.

Aug 13 Note-3

Rajeev Ram lost 36 36 to
Nicolas Massu (CHI,66) today at the the $800K Indianapolis RCA championships
ATP .. Rain has delayed everything by 2-3 hours; not sure when Stephan
and Prakash would play.

I believe there was hardly
much play today (Tuesday) at the Prostejov world junior tennis u14 finals
due to rain .. It also seems that rain is forecast for tomorrow as well;
so it messes up all the plans.

I have only seen the girls'
results reported by news sources from the National Claycourt Juniors in
Chennai - I have updated our page
.. The normally reliable (only for sports! :-)) The Hindu
has not been covering the event, though they are based in Chennai .. Will
look around to get hold of the results.

Aug 13 Note-2

I found this morning that
some of the links in my bookmark file did not work .. I was looking for
Rajeev Ram's score from Indianapolis at some of the news outlets .. Then
it hit me that it has been a long time since I actually looked for score
updates from ATP event singles matches, reported by wire agencies (they
don't report doubles and I end up making phone calls to find out in some
cases, but singles score updates do come in at a half hour delay) .. Anyway,
it all left me depressed too .. It has now been a long time, over a couple
of years, since Leander really played any serious singles on the tour (except
for that one-time-only spurt at Wimbledon last year) .. Even if he wasn't
winning all the time, it was always fun to follow Lee, as there was always
the feeling that no player was beyond his reach on a good day - Oh well,
those were the days! .. Well, it was good to see another Indian name in
a main draw outside of Chennai in a long time, though through a wildcard,
but Rajeev is not doing that well today - 36 03 down to Nicolas Massu when
the rain delay started a while back.

Not a great day for our women
at the Thailand satellite .. Liza Andriyani (INA) upset the 4th seed
Sai Jayalakshmy 60 75, but Sai getting upset is nothing surprising these
days, her form being totally up and down .. To add to the woes, Maki Arai
(JPN) upset the 5th seed Radhika Tulpule (IND) 63 64 .. Lauren Cheung (AUS)
beat qualifier Geeta Manohar 63 60 also, as no Indians won today .. Sonal
plays Liza tomorrow .. Shruti and Sheetal will also be in action tomorrow
..

Awaiting news from Prostejov
on today's matches .. Nothing yet, as the news sources are all clogged
with news on the massive (100 year) flood going on in Prague and other
parts of CZE.

Aug 13 Note-1

Rajeev Ram plays the
first round at the Indianapolis ATP as a wildcard against Nicolas Massu
of Chile today at 11 am .. Massu has been doing well this year, but has
been a bit banged up - nothing serious but he took last week off not to
aggrevate a knee injury from the Toronto masters .. Later in the day, the
Amritraj
cousins come up for doubles first round also .. Actually, I thought
Prakash probably deserved a singles wildcard more than Rajeev right now,
but then it is Rajeev's home field and it would be unfair for Kash to get
the USO wildcard AND the Indi wildcard for his u18 nationals show .. He
probably would prefer a little less workload this week too, I guess, after
the heavy work last week at Kalamazoo .. I will report today's scores as
soon as I find out.

Well, it turns out that 8th
seeded boys u14 team struggled a bit in the 2-1 win against Colombia yesterday,
despite Jeevan Nedunchezhien (or M. Jeevan, or Mathivannan Jeevan, as ITF
calls him .. whatever IS his real name I wonder! :-)) coming through in
superb fashion to start things off .. Here are the boys' scores, according
to the quick news release that AITA has sent out - #2 Mathivanan Jeevan
d. #2 Thomas Estrada (COL) 61 64 .. #1 Rupesh Roy l. Francisco Franco
63 16 57 .. Doubles: S.Gupta/ R.Roy d. F.Franco/ T.Estrada, 76(10) 57 86
.. Wow, that was a nail-biter doubles match -- and the Indians came through
in style in the end! .. Not sure why Sumit did not play singles .. He may
have wanted some rest after 5 weeks of the European tour with the ITF team
(hope he is not banged up or anything)? .. The girls 2-1 win scores were
as reported below, a good match but a loss from Tara, a straight sets win
from Sanaa and a clincher doubles win by Tara-Sanaa over E.Compostizo /
C.Suarez .. Not losing a set in the two wins would help the girls in the
tiebreaker standings if it becomes necessary; the pool is tough and things
like three-way ties are possible there, with Spain hungry for a win.

The u18 claycourt nationals
got underway in Chennai .. Except the u14 players in Czech Rep., and Sania
and Ankita, pretty much all the top kids are all there .. Isha is the top
seed in the girls' draw, with Kartiki the second seed .. The boys' draw
does not have the luster of the last few years, as this has been a down
year for the 17-18 year olds, none of them making a big splash in ITFs
etc .. The player that I am kinda looking at is J.Vishnuvardhan, who qualified
into the main draw .. See the Chennai
juniors page for all the score I have been able to collect so far.

Aug 12 Note-3

Yeah! .. I told you ITF underestimated
India's u14 girls team -- they pulled off the only upset of the day on
the girls' side at the Prostejov u14 finals' roundrobin, taking
out the 7th seed Spain .. Here is the news from ITF - "The only shock
result of the day in the girls’ event was when seventh seed Spain were
beaten by India 2-1 despite taking the first rubber 76(3) 64. India were
able to regain their composure after the first rubber, stepping up a gear
to win the second singles rubber 75 62 and the doubles rubber in straight
sets 63 62. Spain will be hoping that they can put behind them a disappointing
first day in order to prepare for their tie against Brazil tomorrow"
.. "Shock"?? .. Wouldn't have been if you guys did your homework (:-))
.. Looks like Tara Iyer lost 67(3) 46 to Carla Suarez, before Sanaa Bhambri
beat Mayte Gabarrus 75 62, going by the nominated teams (I believe #2 vs
#2 is the first rubber) .. Not sure who played doubles for us, as the full
scores of the day have not been posted yet at the ITF site .. On the boys'
side, unseeded Australia upset the 5th seeded Belarus, an indication that
the Asia-Ocenia region was not as bad as ITF thought, perhaps partly because
India won the championship over AUS (:-)) .. No mention of the Indian boys'
tie .. As I think the Indian boys were seeded, I guess they won over Colombia
today .. Anyway, too early to brag or celebrate anything .. The girls have
much work to do, going up against top seed Netherlands soon .. Boys will
be up against USA soon; USA won .. Indonesian girls lost 0-3, and the 5th
seeded Chinese girls won .. Here is the ITF page
for today's news.

Aug 12 Note-2

Here is the article from
the official website of the US junior
hardcourt nationals at Kalamazoo (quoted without permission)

Prakash Amritraj,
the number two seed, arrived in Kalamazoo with high expectations. Having
been named NCAA tournament Most Valuable Player in the team competition
this spring as a freshman at University of Southern California, he had
proven with his three match clinching wins there that he could handle the
pressure cooker that is Kalamazoo in August. A tough draw didn’t seem to
phase him, and when his opponent in Sunday’s final, Douglas Stewart of
Malibu CA, took out number one seed Brian Baker in the semifinals, it looked
as if the path to his first National singles championship had been cleared
of its major obstacle. But Stewart, who will be playing college tennis
at the University of Virginia next month, had other ideas. Refusing to
be intimidated by the circumstances or his opponent’s resume, Stewart traded
breaks and holds with Armitraj until five all in the first set. He then
broke and held his serve in a tense deuce game to take the first set, 7-5
... Down a set, but realizing that he had ample time to recover in the
best of five set match, early in the second set Armitraj ordered two bananas
and two Pepsi Colas that were passed from father Vijay to a ballrunner
for delivery. He also adjusted to his waning energy level by toning down
his emotional celebrations on big points. After both players held serve
three times, Amritraj held at love in game seven. Stewart needed a strong
service game to keep Amritraj under pressure, but a crisp volley winner
at 30 all gave the second seed a break point, and his intimidating presence
at the net forced Stewart into a passing shot error for the game. Serving
for the set at 5-3, Amritraj jumped out to a 40-15 lead and when Stewart
slammed a ball in anger after a forehand return, he was given a point penalty
for ball abuse. It was the second straight day that Amritraj had won a
set on an opponent’s point penalty, as he had won the first set tiebreaker
against Robert Yim in the semifinals in the same fashion ... With the match
now even, service holds were exchanged until game seven when Stewart was
broken. Amritraj was unable to capitalize on the break, as he immediately
lost his next service game to even the set score at four all. Stewart twice
double faulted to give Amritraj break points in the next game, losing the
game on the second one, when Amritraj ripped a forehand that Stewart managed
to reach but could not quite keep inside the baseline. Serving for the
third set at 30 all, Amritraj forced Stewart into a return error on a crafty
second serve, then hit a forehand winner on the next point to win the set
6-4 ... In the fourth set, Amritraj took the early lead at 2-0, but Stewart
remained tenacious, retrieving ball after ball and returning them with
similar depth and pace. But he needed to limit the damage to the one early
break, which despite a valiant effort in game seven, he was unable to do.
Though Stewart saved three break points to level the game at deuce, Amritraj
hit a volley winner for the advantage and then came up with a lethal backhand
crosscourt winner for the second break of the set. That gave him some breathing
room when serving for the match, a luxury he didn’t need, as he held at
love to win the set 6-2, and take the 2002 National Junior Championship
title. Because he is 19 in October, Amritraj is ineligible to compete in
the US Junior Open. Instead, with the wild card he has earned here, he
will compete on one of tennis’ grandest stages-- the main draw of the US
Open. With this opportunity to challenge the world’s best, he takes an
even larger step into the global tennis spotlight.

That is a really good write-up
on the match .. Timely bananas from Vijay to get him back in the game :-)
.. Check out the above website for the articles on his earlier matchups,
and also the draws on Prakash-Stephen reaching the final four of doubles
and Rajeev Ram winning the doubles, etc.

Here is the article
in the Kalamazoo Gazette about the win .. There is a wonderful
line from Prakash in there - "He's hitting the ball harder, deeper, which
counters my game, which is coming in. Running me sideline to sideline,
in the heat, was really cutting me short of energy,which I need to serve
and volley ... At that point, I told myself, 'If you're gonna go down,
go down like a man. Go down at the net.'" .. Hey I want to frame that
line .. The machines that kill the fun in the ATP tour these days should
learn from the kid, and show the guts to go to the net and go after somebody
rather than pound the ball till kingdom come and wait for the other to
make a mistake or hit the corner chalk sometime and go whoop-dee-doo ..
On the other hand, the ability to trade the stuff from behind and go for
his natural serve and volley using his mind is what has really made Prakash
break through like this in the last few months, I think. Watch out!
.. By the way, does anybody remember my first news item on Prakash,
in 1999? - a Bangkok Post news report that took note of only
one kid in that day's play in a Thailand ITF junior event, and uncharacteristically
it was about somebody who lost! - 15 yr old Prakash basically parked
himself at the net and went down volleying - as that's basically what he
knew he was good at! ..

Here is another article
from the Kalamazoo newspaper with a tidbit on Prakash's new coach at USC
having to take a red-eye flight to see him play the final!

Here is the article
in the Los Angeles Times about Prakash .. He confirmed a
rumor that has been going around, that he may not stick around in college
for too long .. He says he may be playing pros this fall .. The NCAA does
allow one sememster off from college to play pro events, and he can safely
return to college too .. Anyway, the college season does not heat up till
January and so Kash does not stand to lose much by testing the waters ..
Hey, Vijay -- pull out some cash and run a couple of challengers in India
- let the kid play there :-) .. Better still, let's also change that (USA)
next to his name.

Aug 12 Note-1

There is some serious hoopla
and newspaper articles going on in the US about Prakash Amritraj's huge
national junior title yesterday .. As I have said recently, this kid does
seem to have a "nose" for the big stage - a champion's quality .. To make
it into US Open main draw as an 18 year old is amazing .. Call me a believer
- I was so-so in my comments on Prakash throughout his junior ITF career,
though always hoping for him to break through, as those who read between
the lines would have figured out .. He never really had a break through
event in the juniors but the guy is something else altogether now - basically
ever since upsetting Mankad then ranked #2 in college tennis 6 months back
.. Go Kash! .. I will have more on Prakash later - first some more news.

The world u14 world final-16
kicked off today at Prostejov, Czech Republic .. The draw was done
Sunday night and this is early info that just came out .. I have not seen
the schedule of matches, full seedings etc .. India's bad luck with the
draws continues even in the Junior events, I guess - both our teams got
clubbed with the top seeded teams in the field .. On the girls' side,
with Sanaa and Tara in the team (both top 200 in ITF world 18s rankings,
Sanaa even ranked #14 in the European rankings in the 16!) India had a
legitimate claim to be one of the top 5-6 seeds, but the world final-16
seedings rarely go outside of Europe and US, and I don't think anybody
noticed our team change with Tara coming into the team and having come
on strongly recently .. I think China got seeded but not India on the girls's
side .. I don't know what criterion they use for these things .. Anyway,
the Indian girls got clubbed with some of the really tough teams out there
.. Nederlands, Spain and Brazil in pool-1.. Nederlands has Europe's
#1 u14 player, Michaela Krajicek and are the top seeds in the field of
16 .. And Spain is the #4 team in Europe behind NED, CZE and POL who are
seeded #1, 2, 4 here .. Not that any other draw would have been all that
better, but I was looking for a pool with somebody like an Egypt, Indonesia,
or NZL in it - even the USA u13 team is not that strong and I am not sure
they deserved to be seeded in the top four .. China basically has a free
pass into the next round, with US, as they are in a pool with Egypt and
NZL .. These are all just my impressions on the strength of these teams
.. But that is how it goes .. Oh well, Sanaa and Tara have the work cut
out for them .. On the boys' side, I think India as the Asian champions
got seeded in 4 thru 8, but we got clubbed with the top seeds - USA ..
Belgium and Colombia are the other two in our pool .. I thought our boys
really had a chance to be seede in the top four on paper itself, the way
they rammed through as the Asian qualifiers without even dropping a match
and only two sets if I remember correctly, summarily beating those like
Australia (twice) .. But I am willing to reassess a bit (:-)) based on
the no-so-outstanding tour that our #2 player Sumit had in Europe the last
5 weeks .. I believe the boys were to take on the USA today .. We should
hear about today's scores soon.

I
am getting some inquiries from US college coaches who are interested in
Indian junior players .. I would like to be able to contact Indian players
(some of the coaches are inquiring about specific names) .. If any of the
junior players are reading this, please contact me .. Or if any of the
other readers know the contact emails/address for any junior player, let
me know .. I would like to have a mailing list where I can post general
announcements and inquiries from the coaches too .. Please email
me - R.Jayakrishnan.